Thursday, October 28, 2010

All in the name of Accessibility

September 2009 was a rough month. Fast forward a year to September 2010 and I spent a good chunk of the month in an irritable mood.

If I were to be compared to an animal, I would have been Mango. Imagine a large fluffy orange cat. Now imagine that cat crouched on the doorstep with its fur wet from the rain, its ears laid back and body tense, a ticked off expression on its face, and all the while you hear that angry cat growl.

I don't think I portrayed that image to everyone I came in contact with, but that is how I felt inside. It was a result of my anticipation of some upcoming home improvement projects.

It is a cycle that I have come to recognize. As more of my physical abilities are lost, adaptations need to be made. And I get angry about the changes. It would have been nice if the diagnosis could have been given and I could have gotten out all of my grieving in the early stages and then moved on anticipating and making needed changes as I go...anger free. But like I said, it is a cycle I recognize, and it is how I mourn. I mourn incrementally as needed, and then move on.

This time the adaptations were big; Improving and increasing accessibility. We added a handrail down the steps into our backyard and remodeled our bathroom. The counter has been lowered, the shower is now a walk-in and a wall was partially removed and the doorway widened to be (someday when needed) wheelchair accessible. Everything was wrapped up in October.

With the big changes came a lot of sadness and it seemed to drag on much longer than normal. One morning, after Erik and Claire left for school and Jeff had gone to work, all I wanted to do was stare at the old nail hole in the wall. Do you know what I mean, where you want everything and everyone to just go away. Even if it is only for a couple of hours.

All of a sudden my wake-up call came. It was like there was a voice in my head saying, "Janae, this has gone on long enough. Get over yourself!" (There wasn't really a voice in my head...because that would present a another set of problems!) I had passed the point of grief to where it became unproductive self pity. Feeling sorry for myself consumes a surprisingly large amount of energy. So the wake-up call was a welcomed kick to get my a*s moving.

I got up and walked down the hall and just started laughing at Megan. She was dancing in the middle of our family room rug, wearing a bunch of medals around her neck and singing into a crayon. Her song went something like, "I'm a rock star, every day...God gave us fam-ilies...O' yah, I'm a really good singer!"